


It Took a Lot of Super Stuff to Get You Here

by beanarie



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: dream_holiday, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Remember that time I knocked you unconscious?</i> Arthur thinks, gritting his teeth. <i>I'm not at all sorry about that.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	It Took a Lot of Super Stuff to Get You Here

**Author's Note:**

> This is the [dream_holiday](http://dream-holiday.livejournal.com/) gift-fic for [kyasuriin](http://kyasuriin.livejournal.com/). She asked for BAMFs in love, globe-trotting, and getting-together fic. I added those requests to [this awesome prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=46218672#t46218672) on the kink_meme and got a story out of it. Title is by Say Hi To Your Mom, the best-named band ever. Thank you to [gollumgollum](http://gollumgollum.livejournal.com/) for betaing and for generally being amazing. <3

Arthur walks out of the airport in Lamezia-Terme and puts on his sunglasses, amused by the fat palm trees dotting the landscape like massive pineapples. There's a car waiting for him in the parking lot, a non-descript tan Fiat with a cell phone and a manila folder full of their latest intel in the glove compartment. The one number on speed dial leads directly to his superior, Wilson.

Wilson takes a few minutes to give Arthur his orders. "This is the sort of operation that Breuer has headed up several times before," he concludes, his mild tone obliquely blaming Arthur for Breuer being out of commission, even though Arthur had been a thousand miles away when Breuer broke his leg during that foot chase in Beirut. "You'll impress a lot of people if you pull this off, son." Meaning that they will make him regret his father ever met his mother if he doesn't. Also meaning that Wilson personally is rooting for the second option.

"Thank you, sir. I'll check in when I've reached Reggio Calabria," Arthur says. He pushes the end button with a little bit too much force.

By the time he gets into the city, he's memorized the floor plan of the museum, including the new wing they added last month and the two new restrooms. He knows where the guards do their walk-throughs, where each exit and window is. He knows exactly where Jowitt, the engineer, is supposed to stop and make the handoff, and at exactly what time. He has Monier waiting in the wings to act as the buyer, and Badu on surveillance. He wasn't told what is being exchanged, only that it's a device invented or improved on by Jowitt, who now wants to take it out of America's proprietary hands. But that's okay. He knows all he needs to know.

This should all be fine

:::

Thirty-six hours later, he's in the van, trying to figure how everything could have turned so spectacularly to shit so quickly.

"And Jowitt's still in his room?" he asks, his voice tighter than a drum. He can't seem to stop envisioning Wilson's smug fucking face.

Badu offers his set of headphones. "He's haranguing the cleaning staff right now. Something about wet towels, I think. His Italian is really shitty."

Arthur declines with a raised hand. "Does he have the case?"

Badu shakes his head. "I really don't think so. One of our friends from Interpol donned a maid's uniform and did a quick run-through while he was distracted. She couldn't see anything like what we described."

"The safe-"

"Empty. His room safe is empty."

Monier, still wearing the gray jacket that was supposed to signify him as the buyer, says what everyone is thinking. "He made the exchange there in the hotel."

"But he never went downstairs." Arthur sits down in the chair next to Badu. "I need a list of everyone who has entered that room or so much as paused underneath the balcony."

"Our most likely candidate is whoever claimed to be Room Service ten minutes ago," Badu replies. "It wasn't supposed to be for Jowitt. They knocked on his door and made out like it was a mistake."

Arthur points at the screens. "Rewind. We need to see this guy's face and find out where he went."

It takes a while to pick him out, a brown-haired man in his twenties, too pale to be from the area (Though his Italian sounded flawless on the tape. He could be from up North, like Naples or Venice.) leaving the hotel on his own with a large black duffel bag. Then it's another three before they trace him to a tour bus that got off the ferry from Sicily this morning. A few more minutes gets Arthur the name of the bus driver and the tour guide, as well as the welcome knowledge that no one has departed the bus since it left Reggio Calabria.

Arthur catches up to the bus at a gas station slightly north of the city. Then he convinces the tour guide to let Arthur take his place. It's less subtle than he would like, but, in the absence of a better option, that's what Arthur does.

He waits until everyone has boarded before introducing himself, making careful eye contact with each person as he tells them that Carlo was regrettably called back to the office.

The thief, seated four rows from the front, smiles while Arthur gives his speech. He opens a mouth full of slightly jagged teeth, causing Arthur to assume 'Brit' before he even speaks. But when he says, "You're no native," he actually sounds Australian, just like the giggly, curly-haired blonde pressed against his side. "Interesting choice for a tour guide."

Arthur reminds himself that the UK is not the only part of the world with a lax attitude toward orthodonture. "Find a dip in the quality of your experience and we'll be happy to reimburse you," he says with a smirk. "Now, let's get going. The restaurant is expecting us for lunch."

A few kilometers down the road, the bus empties out almost completely, everyone chattering about bread, cheese, and wine. Arthur stays up front with the driver. The thief lingers for a good two minutes, winding the headphones around his CD player and slowly stowing it in his bag, before the blonde walks back into the bus, knocks on the window above his head, and wraps her hand around his wrist.

"Come on. We're gonna share a pizza, yeah?" she says. "I'm not hungry enough for a whole one myself."

"I'm sure if I said no," he says with a yawn, allowing her to pull him up and out. "You'd find a way to get me to agree anyway." He gives her a wide grin, looking every bit the sleepy, over-traveled young tourist. Arthur is impressed in spite of himself.

He waits just long enough to be sure they aren't coming back, then he gets the driver to open up the luggage compartment underneath the bus and tells him to take off. While he searches for the black duffel, he calls Badu.

"Give us six, seven minutes," Badu says. "We're right behind you."

Arthur's hand closes on black canvas. He unzips the bag to find a silver case inside, and he lets himself smile. "Great. See you soon."

"Will you?" asks the thief.

Looking up, Arthur pulls his gun. "Settle down," he warns, gripping the handle of the silver case as he rises. "I'm taking this. You should start coming up with things to tell the authorities. They might give you a break if someone else was pulling your strings."

"Is there another option?" the thief asks, his eyes drifting to the left. Worried that one of the tourists might be approaching, Arthur goes along with the distraction, paying for it when the gun is kicked out of his hand. The thief kicks him twice in the stomach.

Well, that was amateur hour. Fueled by self-recrimination, Arthur lashes out with the case, landing a noisy blow on the side of the thief's head. The clasp breaks on impact. The case flies open. His heart racing, Arthur gets a glimpse of what looks like the cross-section of a small fuel injection engine as he carefully closes the case. “Fuck,” he mutters. “ _Brainless_.” Wilson would be so pleased if he caught the thief at the expense of the device.

The thief, stretched out on his side on the ground, doesn’t react. Arthur pokes him in the ribcage with the toe of his shoe, rolling him into an inelegant sprawl on his back. If he’s not out, he’s very good at pretending. Arthur drags his dead weight back into the bus and handcuffs him to the steering wheel. There he stays until Badu's van pulls up next to them.

Arthur gets out to hand the device to Badu, saying, "Get that under wraps, now."

"Yes, sir," Badu says, running his hand over the case.

"And don't open it. Whatever kind of tech that is, it's not for us." Arthur combs his hair back with his fingers and climbs into the van. "Monier, go grab the buyer. He's chained to the driver's seat."

Three seconds later, Monier pokes his head back in. "No one there, sir."

Arthur gives a start. "Well then." They have the device. The buyer was just gravy. “Interpol has his description?”

“They will in ninety seconds,” Monier says, taking out his cell.

“Perfect,” Arthur says. Responsibility thus delegated, he leans his head back and closes his eyes. "Let's get out of here."

:::

Arthur’s debriefing is conducted not by Wilson, but Atkins.

"Wilson was called away," Atkins says. "Something in DC, you know how it is." The Southerner is more congenial on his worst day than Wilson on his best. Of course, in their line of work, that only means that he isn't outwardly an officious prick. But Arthur accepts it, gladly. After Arthur has finished giving his account of events and answering questions he knows were at least half intended to trip him up, Atkins gives him a brief smile.

"We're going to need a new man on this project. How would you like a change of scenery?"

Tired of watching his words, Arthur lets himself ask, "Do I get to find out what that device does?"

Atkins shocks him by saying, "You'll do more than just find out."

Then Arthur, the new liaison to Project Sandman, is put on a plane to San Diego.

Much to his frustration, Arthur is not exceptionally skilled at the landscaping end of dreaming. While not rigid to the point of complete solidity, he performs better with parameters, and he is at his absolute _best_ under pressure. The truly talented dreamers create when they have no direction, simply letting themselves go, compiling extensive mental portfolios to be browsed through and applied as needed. Arthur is perfectly competent, but his efforts pale in comparison with those of, say, Dominic Cobb, with his freshly inked doctorate in Architecture.

Like most... nerds, Cobb is earnest and rambling and sort of, almost, romantic, in his own way. Arthur gravitates to the man, often asking for clarification and opinions, emboldened and enlightened by Cobb's feedback. Soon Cobb is essentially co-writing Arthur's reports to his superiors. He doesn't seem to mind that the ideas they're throwing around, all these possible applications for their work, may be used on unwilling subjects. Arthur really appreciates that about him.

Once they hypothesize and postulate for so long it's no longer day and even night is barely hanging on, and Dom rubs his eyes and smiles sheepishly and says, "Okay, I stole your evening. That means I owe you dinner. What say we continue this over some of my wife's excellent cooking?"

Mal Cobb greets them from the kitchen. "I put on a pot of decaf," she says, kissing Dom soundly. She's French, she has flawless skin, and she somehow makes heather gray lounge pants and a men's v-neck undershirt look chic and expensive.

"So thoughtful." Dom grins, covering her rounded stomach with his hand. Arthur hasn't spent time with many pregnant women, but she looks as though she only started showing recently, mid second trimester probably. "Mal, this is Arthur."

She breaks away from Cobb with visible effort and favors Arthur with a polite smile. "Very nice to meet you, Arthur," she says. She does not offer her hand.

"Thank you for having me,” Arthur says. “I'm sorry if we're keeping you from bed." It is incredibly late at this point. It would be perfectly understandable for someone to be annoyed with having a guest at this hour.

"Oh, no. Please, it's fine. Really, I haven't slept normal hours since I started university," she says. Her expression hasn't thawed. "Gentlemen, there is a pan of Chicken Cordon Bleu in the oven. I could not possibly eat any more tonight, so I'll just leave you to it."

Cobb catches her hand. "You have to go?" he asks.

She brings his hand to her lips, smiling with such warmth that Arthur realizes it isn't that she's annoyed at all. She just isn't interested. "Don't take too long," she says in a stage-whisper.

Some months later, Dom brings Arthur along for dinner with Mal's sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued father, Stephen Miles. During a lull in the debates about dreaming, Arthur thinks about asking Miles what his daughter was like before she met Dom. Clearly once she found her soul-mate, she didn't see the worth in dealing with anyone else.

Even as Arthur congratulates the Cobbs on the birth of their baby daughter, he wonders how that will work. The two of them are so obviously wrapped up in each other. He doesn't see there being room for an interloper.

:::

The third day of spring, Arthur is called back by his superiors.

Wilson’s sneer hasn’t changed. "You're being pulled from the project," he says, then looks up. "Obviously. I know you didn’t think we flew you back here to wish you a happy Easter."

Arthur nods.

"Son, you aren't nearly as crucial to the grand scheme of things as you think," Wilson says, as if Arthur expressed some kind of confusion or disagreement. "That device you rescued in Italy was one of several. Project Sandman has research and development teams scattered throughout the country. And of our liaisons, it must be said, your contributions have been on the less valuable side of the scale."

"It would be much appreciated, sir." Still in the at-ease position, Arthur grips his wrist tight behind his back. "If you refrained from calling me 'son'."

"Noted." The bastard grins at him. "So, back to the reason for your jetlag. We managed to keep possession of our four PASIV devices, yet somehow the schematics got out. Known criminals have been caught on satellite photos with some very recognizable-looking tech. We'd ask Jowitt, but he was garroted in his summer home three weeks ago."

"Yes, sir."

"Your assignment now is to help find and shut down any unauthorized use of dream-share technology. Jowitt, fuck-up that he was, was one of ours. His creation was and will remain property of the United States government. Understand?"

"I'll give you my best. Sir."

"I've been reading your reports, son." Wilson buries his nose in a file, effectively dismissing him from the room. "Try to give a little more than that, all right?"

:::

William Fenimore is a Liberian, raised in Freetown, who happened to luck out and catch the eye of an American photographer when he was seventeen. He moved to Europe and made a decent living as a runway and print model. After retiring a few years later, he used the money to pay for a degree at the University of Johannesburg, where he stayed, becoming a criminal when he couldn't find a job doing what he'd studied four years for. The man is clever and corrupt, and he has five children by three different women, all of whom are still in his life to varying extents. He has no known history of violence. He's been seen with a PASIV device on two separate occasions, and photographed with one once.

By all accounts, he would make a perfect asset. Arthur is banking on this. Months have passed and he's barely made a dent. Subconscious criminals are proving more slippery than their top-side counterparts. In general, they seem smarter, more experienced. Less prone to making mistakes.

Thankfully it's easy to catch this particular one off-guard, though. Arthur leaves Fenimore unconscious and handcuffed to the radiator. The PASIV device he finds under the bed next to a leather satchel. After he opens the bag, the ground seems to shake under his feet. But he strongly suspects it's just his imagination.

And here he was assuming the bag would be full of clothes. Maybe toiletries.

His fingers curl around the topmost bundle of bank notes. He gives it a smell.

From the other side of the room, Fenimore lets out a groan. Arthur nods to himself, thinking of Wilson and everyone like him, thinking of his last paycheck and his pension and his 401K, thinking of how dreaming is the one thing he didn't get the chance to achieve true proficiency in.

As Fenimore blinks awake, Arthur stands directly in his line of vision, making sure he is the only thing the thief can see.

"I want to propose a trade," Arthur says. "I'll show you how to avoid being caught by someone like myself."

"If...?" Fenimore asks.

"If you'll show me how to turn that," he points at the PASIV, "into this." He tosses the bundle of cash at Fenimore's chest.

:::

The man from Italy shows up during a prep session, strolling by to grab a coffee from the Dunkin Donuts kiosk while Arthur is searching the airport terminal for Fenimore's secret. He finds it, eventually, stuffed into the bottom compartment of a hiker's pack. Fenimore finds Arthur soon after, his pleased expression fading to a curious quirk when he sees the projection still hanging around.

"I don't remember him being that thin," he says, frowning. "That must be one of yours, I think."

It takes Arthur a moment to puzzle out his meaning. "You know who he is?"

"That's Eames," Fenimore says easily. "We're not a very widespread industry right now. Not many choices of who to work with." He steals an apple from the frozen yogurt stand and tosses it in the air a few times. "He's very useful, for an Englishman."

English, after all. Arthur feels a slight, vague sense of vindication. "Is he?"

Fenimore nods. "Very skilled thief. There's something else, too."

"What's that?"

"He can change his skin in the dream."

"What, like skin-tone? Tattoos?"

Fenimore takes a large, noisy bite from the apple. "Like he can become other people."

Arthur blinks. "I didn't even know that was possible."

"Not many things impress you, but this will." Fenimore claps a hand against Arthur's back. "Let's go to Kenya."

:::

Arthur isn't shocked when Eames pulls a gun the moment the spark of recognition goes off behind his eyes. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

"Eames," Fenimore says calmly. "That is not necessary. Put the gun down."

"You may say that." Eames doesn't stop looking at Arthur. "Yet I have no desire to live out my days in incarceration. Funny, I know. My priorities have always been wildly askew."

Fenimore takes a step forward. "Listen-"

"Are we being recorded?" Eames asks. "I didn't think to have the place scanned for electronics before I arrived, though apparently that was a massive oversight on my part. No, really, what the fuck were you thinking, Will? You brought CIA here?"

"Arthur isn't CIA."

Eames does a sort of half-roll of his eyes, careful not to let Arthur out of his sight. "Something else, then. I was never able to find out."

"I'm not," Arthur says. "Not any more."

"Is that so?"

"It is."

"I oversaw this man’s corruption personally," Fenimore says. "We've done several jobs together. If he were still active, I would have been rotting in a very secret, very painful prison right now."

"Those are the exact words you would use if he turned you," Eames says.

Arthur scoffs. "What kind of moron would pull an undercover op on someone who knows that he's an agent?" he asks. "If I wanted to bust you, I wouldn't have gone for you myself. Give me a little credit."

"Point." Eames lets the gun hand fall to his side. Arthur relaxes minutely before Eames darts forward, and he's too slow to duck when Eames uses his free hand to punch him in the jaw. Backing up a few steps, satisfied for the moment, Eames nods at Arthur, tapping the side of his head twice. "I lost two terms of primary school, thanks to you. Including my eleventh birthday. I think that was a good one, too."

Arthur works his jaw, grateful that the blow won't leave more than a light bruise. "If you ever figure it out, let me know. I won't talk restitution until I know the full extent of the loss."

Eames smirks . "Do they give out special training to be an arsehole, or did it come naturally to you?"

Arthur ignores that. "As Mr. Fenimore can attest, the United States government stopped signing my paychecks some time ago. Accept that as truth, or don't. This forging thing is all smoke and bullshit anyway. There's no way you can do what they say you can. Therefore, I can't see how you're needed here."

"Oh," Eames says. "Oh, really?"

Fenimore puts his hand on Eames's shoulder. "I think Arthur could use a demonstration."

Eames smiles a smile full of shark's teeth. "All right then."

:::

Arthur shuts up for nearly a full minute after he sees his first dream forgery.

They are in Times Square, but Arthur grew up in Connecticut not fifty miles away, and he remembers there being rainbow oil slicks in the street, overflowing garbage cans on every corner, and metric fuckton upon metric fuckton of tourists aimlessly clogging the sidewalks, their faces bright with wonder at all the attractions, grown children in a candy store. This is the Epcot version of New York, spotless and not even slightly aggravating. He would have appreciated it more, possibly, if not for the figure standing next to him, tearing into a foil-wrapped street taco. Arthur can't stop staring. It's like looking in a mirror, except his "reflection" is missing a few years and the look in his eyes is infinitely more smug than Arthur has ever been in his life.

"I can see our first meeting stuck with you," Arthur says, once he can find his voice.

Eames-as-Arthur gives a shrug. "You've come in handy once or twice, I admit. The surface is very sincere. Very unassuming. People want to trust this face." Flecks of corn tortilla fly out of his mouth as he speaks. The timber of the voice is a touch too high, but not enough that it isn't _Arthur's_ voice. There are other imperfections as well. Neck too long, too thin. Shoulders, admittedly, not quite as narrow as they should be. And he's short. Well, short _er_. An inch or so shorter than Eames is normally, which makes Arthur think that it was a conscious choice. It isn't only the height discrepancy, either. Arthur doubts that Eames set the dream in the closest major city to his hometown simply by chance. Even though Arthur has tried to erase all markers of southern New England from his speech, Eames had to have picked up on something.

Arthur actually likes having evidence of Eames's pettiness. It proves that he feels threatened by Arthur.

As well he should. Game fucking on.

:::

The job in Cairo goes off with a few hitches, one of which necessitates staying far from Egypt for a good year or two.

"Headed back to the States?" Eames asks. He's whispering. They're taking shelter behind a junked car, waiting for the men with the guns to react to Fenimore's diversion.

Arthur smirks and shakes his head. "I haven't left Africa in months. Can't, unless I want to end up in Fenimore's very secret, very painful prison." He sits back and waits for the gloating to start.

Eames frowns. "Has Fenimore never introduced you to a proper forger?"

Arthur shrugs, mystified.

"Once we're out of this mess," Eames continues, "and you've gotten me my cut, I'll see what I can do."

Eames's miraculous passport allows Arthur to pull off small, neat jobs with Fenimore in Montevideo and Jakarta. After that, Fenimore announces that he doesn't want to leave Johannesburg any more.

"Why not?" Arthur asks.

"I'm in love," Fenimore explains, smiling at some point off in the distance. The most baffling part, it's with the mother of his eldest child, a woman he's been attracted to and repelled from in turns for more than a decade.

Several hours and two bottles of alcohol do not help things make any more sense. "You're incredibly strange," Arthur says, in lieu of good-bye.

Fenimore laughs and shakes Arthur's hand, clapping him on the back one last time. "You will be such a very rich man, Arthur. Look me up when you find yourself in Jo'burg, yeah? I might need to borrow some money."

:::

The mark is a financial advisor from London with a long-harbored obsession with nature. They get to him while backpacking solo in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. It's a straightforward, even simple job. The mark rejected all past offers to be militarized, not liking the idea of people poking around in his head, and Guzman the architect has enough combat training to be sufficient back-up for Eames. On D-Day, Arthur is essentially demoted to lookout, spending much of his time waiting outside the tent to ensure that no one happens by.

No one does.

Well, apart from a small herd of bison.

It is the easiest payday he's ever earned.

Afterward, they drive back through Needles Highway. Endless pillars of rock stretch up to the sky. When rising sun hits the craggy surfaces just so, it takes Arthur's breath away.

"That's kind of magnificent," he says, before he can stop himself.

Eames snorts. "You are _adorable_."

 _Remember that time I knocked you unconscious?_ Arthur thinks, gritting his teeth. _I'm not at all sorry about that._

:::

It's been so long since he's been in contact with Dominic Cobb that when he gets the news, his first thought is, _They had another kid?_

Next comes, _I always knew they'd burn each other out eventually._ A love like theirs could only go supernova.

Idly, merely out of curiosity, he does some digging. Mal Cobb, dead of massive injuries following a nineteen story fall, her husband Dominic found sitting quietly, all but catatonic, on the floor of a ransacked hotel room. It doesn't take much to hack into the evidence logs, several items of which intrigue him enough to bribe someone to forward copies to him. He reads the letter Mal filed with the lawyer, the reports of sanity from three psychiatrists, and he decides that the LAPD does not train people to look beyond the obvious. He can't begin to comprehend what actually happened, but it's clear that Cobb was set up.

He finds Cobb in Hamburg, looking hunched and small inside a dark corduroy coat, staring at a plate of something rendered unidentifiable by his efforts with a knife and fork. He doesn't get up when Arthur takes the seat next to him, only raises his head and swallows.

"You here to take me back?" Cobb asks, slowly closing his fingers around the handle of the knife.

Arthur gestures at the pretty waitress. He hasn't lived in Germany since he first joined the military. Suddenly he's reminded of how much he's missed the beer. "Why would I want to do that?" he replies. "You didn't do it."

:::

 _Interesting development,_ the email reads. _Apparently you've affixed yourself to that mental who murdered his wife. Is he very fun at parties or something?_

Much of Arthur’s reason for inviting Eames to join them in the Czech Republic is to prove exactly why Cobb is worth keeping around. Once Eames sees what Cobb can do in the dreamscape, he stops giving Arthur the side-eye. It isn't as though Eames had qualms about working with a possible murderer. Eames has no morality to speak of, never had.

Then they're in Ankara, and the shadow of Mal Cobb has shown up in the dream. Cobb is thrown, white-faced and distracted, which to Arthur seems justifiable, especially since they still get the job done.

While finalizing the layout for a job in Barcelona, she appears again. And for the first time in Arthur's experience, Eames pulls out of a job before even coming close to the mark.

"I know a liability when I see one," Eames says after he hands over the information he's compiled. "And to be honest, I assumed you did, too." The disappointment in his voice would be less infuriating if Arthur didn't actually feel sort of ashamed right now.

"We were never able to control which projections show up at what time," Arthur attempts, even though he knows Eames is as good as gone. "How is this an issue?"

"It's an issue," Eames says.

Months later, on the bullet train in Japan, Arthur walks off the phantom pain from Cobb's non-issue shooting out his kneecap, and he can't help thinking, _Fuck you anyway for being right, asshole._

Later, in Paris, Cobb brings up Eames's name, and Arthur does his best to dissuade the man. He's tried to hire Eames. The pitch only ever lasted as long as "Well, yes, Cobb is involved" before Arthur would be met with a dial tone.

But Cobb, or, more likely, inception, gets past Eames's misgivings.

Eames needles Arthur relentlessly for most of the job, never letting him forget that his presence is conditional. He is there because he wants to be, and he will leave as well, in a second, if he decides he wants to. It's almost as though he's annoyed with Arthur for staying with Cobb, but that makes no sense.

In LAX, when it's all over and done and Miles has shown up to take Cobb home, Arthur wheels his luggage cart toward the glass doors. Eames shoots ahead, cutting him off as though all space is his to barrel through and fuck everyone else.

"Watch it, wonder boy," Eames warns lightly.

Arthur stops in place for a beat, just watching him go. _This absolutely could not have been done without you,_ he thinks, fighting off a smile.

The taxi drops Arthur off at one of those forgettably homogenous chain hotels. Nothing too fancy or expensive. It's only a place to rest his head for the night; in the morning, he's at the train station. And then he's in another city. One of the first things he does there is buy a car, a solid, dependable car that's also relatively obscure and elegant as hell. He's dealt only in rentals and throwaways for so long, having his own vehicle feels like an unbelievable luxury.

That night, he finds a man with a snaggle-tooth and a semi-foreign accent (Canadian. It'll do in a pinch.) and they have a very good time together.

:::

In Daejon, a billionaire businessman asks them to perform inception on his twenty-three year old daughter.

"I gave him my blessing," says Park. "I didn't have a choice. If I'd refused it would only have backfired on me. But she- she has to tell him no."

Arthur places the file in his briefcase and closes it with a snap. "You would like us to plant an idea in your daughter's head to convince her to turn down her boyfriend's proposal."

"Yes. She has too much to do, too much to accomplish. If she married now, she'd be reduced to the role of a simple housewife. I can't allow that."

Eames's nose twitches, a possible flicker of distaste.

"Let me confer with my colleague," Arthur says. He turns and the sight of Eames sitting there forces Arthur to do a quick mental retrace of his steps. Eames never used to be in on the initial meeting with the client. He would be brought in later, if at all. Now they look for jobs together, which should probably feel weirder than it does. But Arthur can barely imagine working without him any more.

Eames taps Park's business card on the table. "This is somewhat outside the purview of corporate espionage and miscellaneous high-end criminal dealings," he says calmly. "Wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, I would," Arthur agrees. Then he reminds Eames of the number of figures Park is willing to pay.

They take the job.

Miss Park goes on to finish medical school and become an oncologist. She never has time for her father, only dropping by for the odd flying visit maybe once a year, but she never has time for other men, either. Or friends.

The aim was to convince her that she didn't need a husband right away, that finishing school mattered more than settling down at such a young age. She grows to believe that she doesn't need anyone, period.

:::

Adelaide is about as exciting as anywhere nicknamed the City of Churches could be, as anywhere nearly all the businesses close at 5:30 PM could be. But it is a pretty little burgh. They spend an almost idyllic ten days there preparing for the job.

And then, suddenly, everyone is about to go under and the mark's security officer is pointing a gun at Eames, his fat finger is pulling on the trigger, and Arthur doesn't think. He doesn't have time to think. He moves in front of Eames. And then, he falls.

"Arthur," Eames says, from a great distance. "Arthur, Jesus Christ."

A feeble sense of triumph dulls the pain and keeps him afloat for a few seconds. _There, you can be shaken. Self-satisfied son of a-_ But dawning realization quickly strips that away, leaving him panicked, exposed beyond the fact that his shirt has been ripped off and Eames's hands are rapidly soaking in his blood. _Oh. Oh, **fuck**._

"Don't read into this," Arthur slurs. "I'm not... Didn't mean anything, y'know."

A wave passes overhead, washing him away before he can hear Eames's response.

When he can see without a red cloud of pain obscuring everything, he discovers that he is holed up in a sleepy suburb called Brighton, which has its own charming little beach and pier and main street lined with cafes and boutiques. Someone paid off a doctor there to repair the damage from the bullet, pump him full of opiates and other fluids, and check in on him every other day. Arthur's initial reaction is, _Not Eames. Please say it wasn't Eames._ Then he learns that Dr. Horticollis was bought with Arthur's cut of the advance they'd gotten from the client.

He doesn't know whether to be relieved or outraged.

:::

For next few jobs, Eames seems to have this increased sense of watchfulness to his actions. Not that he was ever anything but hyper-observant (outward appearances to the contrary), but there is a blatancy to it now that Arthur has never seen before.

They are in a cab, leaving Colombia after successfully extracting the location of a dead warlord's guns and money, when everything clicks.

"You're trying to erase the debt, aren't you?"

Eames glares and places his hand over the mouth-piece of his pre-pay. "Quiet," he mouths. "No worries, Jackie. That was just the flight announcement. I’ll be boarding soon."

Arthur crosses his arms, waiting until Eames has put his phone away. "There's nothing to erase. I was doing my job. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you."

Eames nods once. "Have you finished?"

"I'm hoping I'll never have to mention it again," Arthur says tightly.

"Where are you off to?"

Arthur frowns for a second before deciding that Eames can misdirect him from this topic all he likes. "Um, Tobago."

"You never told me about a job there."

"It’s a vacation, actually," Arthur says. Eames smiles at that, looking surprised and almost relieved, and Arthur has to physically stop himself from showing his confusion. "Anyway, have fun with your lady friend."

"Idiot," Eames says with what sounds like mock fondness. "Jackie is my uncle."

"And what manner of criminal is he?"

Eames laughs, honest and genuine, and in that moment, Arthur thinks he would do anything to hear that sound again.

:::

Niagara Falls is a disconcerting, though not unexpected, juxtaposition of mind-blowing natural beauty enveloped and surrounded and nearly swallowed up by plasticine, manufactured tackiness.

"I wasn't even aware that people still honeymooned in Niagara Falls," Eames says. "While we're in there, what say we perform a small inception to make Dr. and Mr. Mendelssohn less horrifically banal?" He's playing with a small stack of chips from the casino around the corner, rolling it around in his hand, continually transferring one chip from the back of the stack to the front. Eames is forever in motion somehow, tapping his foot, twirling a pen between his fingers, caressing the top of a gun stock with one long finger. Ants in his pants, Arthur's grandmother would say. It underscores the fact that his brain never stops moving. Even when he appears comfortable and settled, his thoughts are always six steps ahead, noting the exits, interpreting the behavior of the other people in the room.

Ariadne arrives a few days after they fly in from Copenhagen. Instead of the office space they rented a five minutes' walk from the falls, she asks to rendezvous with Arthur at the Buffalo Zoo thirty minutes away. Arthur shrugs philosophically. Why not. He hasn't seen an elephant in captivity in years.

Arthur finds her in front of a wrought-iron cage with her head tilted, watching a big white bird conversing in an Australian accent. The plaque in front says the bird is on loan from Adelaide.

Arthur takes her by the elbow. "They got lions here?" he asks.

She allows him to lead her away without protest, smiling as she leans on his arm. Ever since those tense, heady days in that warehouse in Paris, he's appreciated her thirst, her refusal to back down, the way she uses her insight to try to help the people around her. Despite his affection for the woman, he's never once tried to encourage her to leave the business for her own good. She's like Eames. Her skill-set is too essential.

Adelaide has turned Arthur paranoid. During jobs, he kicks himself out of the dream multiple times, does a short patrol topside, and goes back under. That's how he's there to watch as Bruno, the apprentice-level extractor he paid to mind everyone, catches the hotel maid before she comes into the room and fucks everything up. They get through the job. Ariadne wakes up. Eames wakes up. The still-sedated mark lies content and quiet on her bed.

They're all packing up when the mark's husband bursts through the door. Again, someone is pointing a gun at a member of Arthur's team. This time it's Ariadne.

Arthur vaults forward, taking Ariadne to the ground with him, while Eames's bullet goes over their heads. The mark's husband falls.

"Hey, kids," Eames says. "He didn't get a shot off. Why are you still down?"

Ariadne is limp and unmoving under Arthur's weight.

Arthur coughs. "Guess I tackled her with a little too much enthusiasm." He would feel bad about that, if he hadn't just kept the woman from getting shot.

"Right," Eames says. "Bruno, bring the car around." He kneels down to gather Ariadne in his arms. The expression on his face is more thoughtful than Arthur would like.

:::

Ariadne's slight concussion doesn't prevent them from crossing the border. They stop in Toronto to regroup. Bruno offers to keep Ariadne company in one hotel while Arthur and Eames await the client in another. Arthur lets them go. If Bruno wanted to double-cross them, he had ample opportunity before now.

Eames pours scotch from his flask into a hotel water glass. "So," he says finally, swirling his drink. "No bullet-holes for you this time."

Arthur shuts his suitcase with what would be a very satisfying slam, if it weren't made of fabric. "Stop it. I did my job, as I did in the past." He shakes his head. "I knew you'd bring this up. Today there was time to react properly. In Adelaide, there just wasn't."

"Arthur," he says, pitying, and Arthur really wants to punch him. "It's so difficult to admit that you saved my life because you wanted to."

 _Yes_. "The only difference between what happened today and what happened then," Arthur says. "Is that I went into this job knowing what it takes to recover from a bullet wound. You’re insane if you think I’d want to put myself through that again."

Setting down his glass, Eames hums noncommittally and slips his hand inside the untucked hem of Arthur's shirt. Eames's fingers curve around his waist, his palm resting just under Arthur's favorite scar.

"Oh, shut up," Arthur says.

Eames continues to not say a word.

"You're the worst person I've ever come in contact with," Arthur says, not because of the shirt thing, rather because of everything Eames has ever done in his presence, up to and including the shirt thing.

"Hate to disabuse you of this notion of Arthur, the unblemished boy scout," Eames says quietly, "but--and try not to let this utterly shatter your self-image--you're not too far removed from horrible yourself. How many lives have we ruined?"

Arthur doesn't shake off the touch. "Working together or all-inclusive?"

"Mm. All-inclusive."

"Define ruined."

Eames's laugh comes out like a cough, unexpected and fleeting and out of control.

The pad of his thumb skims over the raised edges of scar tissue.


End file.
